Who just snapped the ball??

SO this may have been why Hoke has allowed nobody in practice, but for what reason I do not know. Mealer was at Center last night and Barnum was at LG. Any explanations??

If you are like me there were several surprises last night, but as another thread says I dont think we'll know how good/bad our D-line is until around game 5 or 6. Oh, we also played every defensive lineman on our roster.

Norfleet looked great, but it all depends on if the other team has a kicker who can kick.

Gardner looks like he could be really good at WR.

Royce Jenkins-Stone is NOT redshirting, all 206 lbs of him played special teams.

Last thought: In order for us to complete the stated goal of B10 and Rose Bowl we dont need this game. For all of you that wanted Denard to tote the rock 30 times more than he did just remember he would be dead. Brady Hoke will say all the right things, but mark it down he did NOT want to play this game this year. 2 or 3 years from now I think he'll play anyone anywhere kind of thing, but with no D-line and not his recruits or style of play he knows better.

Mealer seemed to do fine. On another site it was suggested that Mealer was a better shotgun snapper than Barnum. Good to have depth I guess.

Speaking of questions: Does anyone know why Furman didn't make the trip?

As far as freshman playing, Hoke must feel like we need reinforcements now because by my count Wilson, Pipkins, Jenkins-Stone, Ross, Ojemuda, Norfleet, Funchess, AJ Williams all played. Perhaps Richardson too, not sure on that one.

In case you haven't noticed, this staff seems to recruit 4-star linebackers like they are going out of style. If RJS can help us a little this season, that's probably worth not having a better version of him in 2016.

I think this team will need Ojemudia in 2012. He wasn't going to redshirt regardless.

"You will suffer humiliation when the team from my area defeats the team from your area." -- The Onion

Some of these guys have to play. You saw what happened to Countess on special teams. Leave Jenkins-Stone or Ross off the kickoff team, and then you have starters or key backups running downfield on special teams and potentially getting hurt.

Formerly jhender85 (drastic change, no?)

Sometimes guys get hurt. You can't leave all starters off special teams. A.J. McCarron is Alabama's starting QB, and he's also the holder on extra points/field goals. What if a guy dove to block a kick and broke McCarron's leg? Football players play football.

I have never seen the holder get injured. The B1G (and NFL) are limiting KO returns because there are so many injuries. Probably the same with punt returns but hard to reduce those.

If you have a lot of depth at a position, then special teams make sense. If you don't have depth, it is very risky to put your starters on the special teams.

Countess was hurt on special teams, not playing his position.

I believe the same thing happened with JT Floyd last year -- hurt on special teams.

Life should not be a journey to the grave to arrive safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What A Ride!" HST

Thats what I thought. I thought you could still play in the first 3 games of the season and still redshirt or something like that. Tamani Carter before he left the team was listed as a RS FR and I almost know for a fact he played a little bit on special teams early on.

Until they have done it enough times to finally accept what happened last night. It is our Michigan way to do stuff like this in order to come to terms with a loss, especially an embarrassing one. Just go with it.

For all of those complaining about the burned redshirts, get used to it. Unfortunately, because our recruiting and attrition level sucked from late 2008 through the start of 2011, we are WAY thin at almost every position. And, those non-freshmen on out roster outside of the starters are largely not that good. That's an unfortunate fact and we will be dealing with it for at least this year and next. The true freshmen are simply more athletic and, once acclimated to the college game, will be better than the players that could have otherwise played.

By 2014, I expect that Hoke will have the roster fully stocked so that the freshmen can mostly redshirt.